Anyone keeping an eye on the crisis in Ukraine knew that February 20 was an important date to follow.
The Beijing Winter Olympics ended on Sunday and some observers were concerned that the closing ceremony was a convenient time for Russian President Vladimir Putin to launch military action.
There are historical precedents: Russia escalated a brief conflict with Georgia in 2008 during the Beijing Summer Olympics; as well as starting a slow annexation of Crimea to an end at the end of the 2014 Olympics in Sochi.
But Sunday also offered Russia the potential for de-escalation.
Russian military exercises in Belarus were scheduled to end on February 20, and the Kremlin had suggested that Russian troops would return home after completing the exercises.
Instead, Russia took an escape route in the crisis. In a statement sent on Sunday by the Belarusian military on Telegram, Belarusian Defense Minister General Viktor Khrenin said the Russians and Belarusians would continue their exercises. According to him, the “increased military activity near the external borders of the State of the Union” and the growing tensions in Donbass demanded such a decision.
All eyes remained on Donbass on Sunday, as refugees from separatist-held parts of eastern Ukraine streamed through southern Russia and beyond, as news came of more bombing.
Local authorities in Russia’s Rostov region declare a state of emergency after separatist leaders ordered the evacuation of civilians from the region last Friday. But Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov blamed separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions for escalating the situation. He said the separatists, backed by Russia, placed heavy weapons in civilian areas and used them to bomb areas under Ukrainian government control.
Meanwhile, the concentration of Russian forces on Ukraine’s borders appears to have continued, according to US intelligence estimates. A US official with knowledge of the secret services told CNN that Russia has about 75% of its conventional forces stationed on Ukraine’s borders and ready to attack.
Does that mean diplomacy is dead? Not exactly. Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke by phone on Sunday and “agreed to keep the dialogue open at various levels” concerning Ukraine, the Kremlin said. A sore point, however, remains the Minsk Accord, which the Kremlin insists is the only way to resolve the crisis.
The Kiev government, however, believes the deal was hastily drawn up and that Ukraine forced to accept it at gunpoint.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, had a word of caution for leaders talking to the Kremlin over the phone. In an interview with Pavel Zarubim, presenter of the program “Moscou. Kremlin. Putin,” Peskov suggested that the Kremlin be prepared to release high-level confidential discussions with other world leaders to combat what he described as false and deliberate leaks by foreign officials.
“I hope we’re not in a world where we have to read transcripts of confidential conversations between presidents,” Peskov said. “But if it is necessary to prove our president’s ethics, we can and will do anything.”
Source: CNN Brasil
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